BBC Documentaries

Deaf Umrah

Loading player...
Islamic religious practice is deeply entwined with sound, from the call to prayer to memorising the Quran; learning to recite the holy text is very much an oral tradition relying on listening and repetition. All this poses a unique challenge for deaf Muslims. In November 2025, a group of pilgrims from the United Kingdom travelled to Mecca for Umrah, supported throughout in British Sign Language. Through reflections from presenter Zainam Bostan and pilgrims, the programme explores faith, belonging and accessibility, and asks what changes when religious teaching is explained visually, not only heard. The programme follows them from the first sight of the Kaaba to the press of the crowds during Tawaf.
26 Mar 9PM English United Kingdom Education

Other recent episodes

Chef Rodolfo Guzman: Chilean summer menu

Pink tomato ice cream decorated with edible poppy flowers feature on the summer menu created by chef Rodolfo Guzman for his celebrated Santiago restaurant Borago. Jane Chambers hears how the menu celebrates native Chilean plants like wild mountain coconuts.
5 Apr 8PM 29 min

Growing up black in a white family – the truth behind my birth

M People star Andrew Lovell’s home life hid a terrible – yet beautiful – secret. It would take him decades to find out the truth. At the height of his fame, drummer Andrew ‘Shovell’ Lovell had everything he’d dreamed of: sex, drugs and regular appearances at the top of the…
4 Apr 8PM 42 min

The woman fighting IS in Somalia

The global activities of the Islamic State group are now believed to be run from the semi-autonomous region of Puntland in the north-east of Somalia, where IS fighters are entrenched in the caves and harsh mountainous terrain of the area. But many locals there do not support IS and are…
4 Apr 8AM 27 min

Surviving a shark attack

Shark attacks on humans are rare, but they are slowly on the rise in Australia where all our guests are from. In this episode, they share the terrifying moment when they realised they were under attack. For Brett Connellan in New South Wales, it was an encounter with a Great…
3 Apr 8PM 23 min

God, grief and the chatbot

When Megan Garcia travelled to Rome, she carried with her a mother’s grief. At the Vatican she met the Pope and asked him to pray for her son Sewell, who died last year at the age of 14. In the months after his death, Megan discovered Sewell had been spending…
2 Apr 8PM 29 min
All episodes